Chapter 22:
When Gavril Princip assassinated Archduke Ferdinand and precipitated World War I, few Americans thought the war would affect them. Neutrality, though, proved difficult, as many Americans took sides (mostly in support of the Allies) and the Germans violated international law in their submarine warfare by sinking ships indiscriminately, in some cases killing Americans. As this was going on, the United States was also involved in Latin America and the Caribbean, making forays into Mexico, Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. At the end of his first term Wilson passed a number of progressive initiatives and capitalized on keeping the country out of the war to win the election of 1916, but he did become involved in the war diplomatically by proffering his "peace without victory" plan in 1917. It was rejected by all belligerents, and the Zimmerman telegram to Mexico as well as a resumption of German submarine warfare finally pulled the U.S. into the war on the Allied side. Wilson cast American participation in the war as a quasi-religious crusade to change international relations and make the world safe for democracy, which he articulated in his Fourteen Points. At the Paris peace conference, the Europeans were skeptical though they signed the Treaty of Versailles, but Wilson could not induce Congress to ratify the treaty due to Republican opposition and his own stubbornness.
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